Colony

by Rob Grant

  Synopsis:

  Lifetimes ago, the generation ship Willflower set out, manned by the cream of humanity, on a mission to colonize the stars. But by the 10th generation, things are starting to go badly wrong. The only man who can save the ship is astrophysical Dr Piers Morton. Only he's not an astrophysical engineer, he's not a doctor, he's not even Piers Morgan, and all that remains of his body is his head, his spinal column and absolutely nothing else. Better yet, somebody on board is trying to kill what's left of him...

  Colony

  By

  ROB GRANT

  Copyright (c) Rob Grant, 2000

  To my Lily and my Rose

  PART ONE

  Lucky Town

  'Who would true valour see,

  Let him come hither.

  One, here, will constant be,

  Come wind, come weather'

  (John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress)

  1

  Eddie O'Hare considers himself to be the unluckiest man in the entire cosmos. And, bluntly, he's got a damned fine point.

  He's standing at the smoked glass window that takes up an entire wall of a top floor room in a hastily built hotel, staring down at the fickle crowds thronging the neon splattered street below. His stomach is gurgling like a freshly skewered rat dying slowly in a stinking sewer. Tomorrow, the streets will be empty. The town will die. There'll be no reason for it any more. And unless his luck changes, unless the universe stops throwing snake eyes with Eddie's dice, Eddie's going to die along with it.

  In his sweating fist, he's clutching his one last hope. A single gaming chip. A fifty. He's trying hard to think of the number he should place it on. That's all he has to do: pick the right number. A thirty-six to one shot.

  If he can just do this one thing right: one right thing right, then all he has to do is pick another right number. That can be done. That's do-able.

  And then, the last and final thing he has to do is let all those winnings ride on just one more right number.

  He has to pick three right numbers. That's all. If he can just do that. Beat those odds.

  But the thought stops as abruptly as a marathon runner with a stitch just a few seconds after the starting gun, jerks around in agony on the side of the track, and expires.

  Maybe a hardcore gambler could convince himself he could ride that tide. But Eddie's not even a softcore gambler. In the pornographic scale gamblers seem to measure each other by, Eddie's not even the swimwear edition of Sports Illustrated. He's an accountant. He can work out the odds. He can't help himself.

  Forty-six thousand, six hundred and fifty-six to one...

  That's what it will take to turn this sweaty gaming chip into the two and a quarter million he owes to people who would break all of his ribs one at a time with a toffee hammer for a handful of change.

  Face it, Eddie: it's not going to happen.

  Who's he trying to kid with this positivity nonsense? Good things like that hardly ever happen to truly lucky people. And Eddie? Eddie isn't even partially lucky. The only time Fate gives Eddie anything good is so Luck has something juicy to whisk away from under his nose just as he's reaching out to grab it.

  He opens his mouth to sigh, and his tongue actually makes a Velcro ripping sound as it tears clear of the roof of his arid mouth. He tastes his own blood. He imagines he'll be tasting a lot more of it before the morning. Plenty of that particular delicacy coming his way. A few pints he'll quaff. Well, on the bright side, it should help to ease the passage of his smashed teeth down his stomped gullet, and take away the taste of leather toecap.

  He's startled by a long creaking noise that sounds like a deck shrinking in equatorial heat on a doldrums-bound ship. It's his stomach.

  He looks down at the doomed street again. He starts to count people who are laughing. He gives up when it starts to become clear that absolutely everyone is laughing. Every single member of the crowd below is giggling, chuckling or guffawing with that unbridled delight normally only enjoyed by children, the freshly in love, and undeserving movie award winners.

  It seems everyone, everywhere is relishing life and having fun, except for Eddie O'Hare, who will never smile again.

  Because he owes two and a quarter million to...

  To...

  His reflection looks back at him from the blue smoked glass. A sad ghost full of pity for a soon to be sad ghost. The spectre shakes its head in sympathetic disbelief. The cruel twist is: it's not Eddie's fault that he's living this nightmare. He didn't actually do anything wrong. He didn't actually steal from the people he can't bring himself to name in his thoughts.

  The money was stolen by a computer. Not a hacker. Not a living-flesh human trickster using superior technical skills to break through firewalls within firewalls, hack through uncrackable chains of encrypted passwords, and bypass the most sophisticated alarm system in security history. It was stolen from Eddie's computer by Eddie's computer.

  Eddie doesn't have any idea where the money went. One nanosecond it was there, the next it wasn't. No sign the system had been accessed from the outside. The computer just up and disappeared the money. And for reasons currently unfathomable to Eddie, it left behind an electronic trail that led to him.

  He's been framed for a non-existent crime by a mass of wires and hot electrical circuits.

  Now, you try explaining that to the... to those kind of people.

  No. Eddie was left with just two alternatives: somehow replace the money before it was missed, or spend the rest of eternity as a small portion of the foundations of some unfinished hotel no one would ever check into, with ice picks lodged in his decomposing testicles.

  He liquidified as much of his assets as possible in the time -- what a meagre haul that had seemed, set against his ludicrous debt -- and headed for what he considered to be the fairest casino in town.

  It had taken him seventeen years of virtuous thrift and parsimonious self-denial to amass his pitiful savings. It took considerably less than seventeen minutes to lose it all.

  So now, here is Eddie O'Hare, in a free hotel suite the casino reserves for its biggest high-rollers, for the people who lose the most money the quickest, clutching a fifty chip some big-time winner has tossed him in pity. And that chip is the last thing between Eddie and a very brutal...

  Eddie sees the big hole appear in the door before he hears the sound of the gunshot. The huge smoked window he's gazing through cracks across the middle and the top half seems to sigh, then collapses without protest down towards the thrill below.

  The door has already been kicked down and two men are standing in the doorway, silhouettes against the corridor's glow. Tight-fitting grey suits, ties as thin as stiletto blades, trousers slightly too short, exposing fluorescent pink socks above black suede loafers.

  The uniform.

  How did they find out so fast? How did they find him so fast? Eddie doesn't really have time to think, as the men start to cross the room briskly and businesslike in his direction. Just doing a job. Dum de dum.

  Eddie briefly contemplates hurling himself after the window. Then he realizes that would be fairly silly, since that's probably what the men are going to do to him, if he's lucky.

  The first man reaches him. Eddie sees his features. He has startlingly red hair. He's not smiling, but he's not looking angry, either. For some reason, Eddie finds this reassuring.

  Wrongly.

  The man grabs him firmly but not violently under his arms as the second man arrives, his gun freshly holstered. He's bald, this other one. Shiny bald. He grabs Eddie behind the knees, and swings him up. Hammocked between the two men, Eddie feels strangely guilty that he didn't put up some kind of a fight. Some sort of struggle at least. A verbal protest, even.

  They swing him back, ready to pitch him through the window. Edd
ie's aware of the aftershave of the man holding his arms. He thinks it's quite nice. In other circumstances, he might have asked for the brand name.

  One of the men speaks. The redhead.

  'Mr Bevadino would really like to know where his money is.'

  Eddie looks out of the window at what has suddenly become a beautiful night sky. The moon really does look blue, just like in the song. He thinks about the long fall he's about to undertake.

  He's not looking forward to it.

  It's not the prospect of the crushing, mangling impact that fills him with dread -- he believes that he'll be dead before he's splattered over the pavement like so much regurgitated Saturday night kebab. No, what he's really dreading is having his life flash before him. It was bad enough going through it once. Such a nothing of a life. Such a safe, riskless, funless excuse for a life.

  'Last chance, pilgrim. It's a busy night.'

  A thought strikes Eddie, and he voices it. 'Who's Mr Bevadino?'

  The two men make eye contact over Eddie's horizontal body.

  'Ahmed Bevadino? Ring any bells?'

  Even though he knows the name means nothing to him, Eddie genuinely tries to remember. He makes a real effort. That's Eddie for you. He doesn't want these men angry with him. He shakes his head. 'I... sorry. No. Don't think I recall a Mr Bevadino.'

  'You don't?'

  'Sorry.' And then, feeling this isn't enough, Eddie adds: 'I know a Mr Beverley.' What is he thinking of? Is he hoping they'll shrug, say 'That'll do', and launch him out of the window anyway? Bevadino? Beverley? That's close enough? Get a grip, Eddie.

  The bald man with the holstered gun lowers Eddie's legs. 'You'd better not be wasting my time.'

  Or what? Eddie thinks. But he doesn't say it.

  Baldy walks to the door, which is prone. He looks down, then looks over at his colleague. 'This is 888.'

  The man with an arm lock on Eddie says: 'You sure? It looked like 886.'

  'Yeah. There's a little nick out of the last 8.'

  'A little nick?'

  'Yeah. Tiny chip in the number. Makes it look like a 6.'

  Redhead releases Eddie and steps back to what Eddie thinks is probably perfect karate kick distance. Eddie hopes he never gets to find out. 'What's your name, pilgrim?'

  Baldy takes some folded sheets of paper out of his back pocket.

  'My name?' Eddie's mind is galloping now. Should he give them his real name? What if these men also work for the people Eddie's angered, as well as Mr Bevadino? What if his name's down on their list, only later on? Maybe next, even. They could be working their way along the corridor. They said it was a busy night, didn't they? On the other hand, what if Eddie's not on the list, gives them a false name, and it turns out to be the name of someone who is on the list? Perhaps even the name of the wretched unfortunate they thought they were about to defenestrate. For Eddie, that's not far fetched, it's a real possibility. Eddie believes he really might be that unlucky.

  'Edward.' Eddie hopes that might be enough. It isn't.

  Red reaches into Eddie's pocket and tugs out a pathetically slim wallet, with an unnecessary 'Excuse me.' He flips through the maxed-out credit cards and finds some ID. 'Edward O'Hare?'

  Eddie nods.

  'Like in the airport?'

  Eddie nods. He's about to launch into his well-polished story about O'Hare airport, but decides, just in time, that this isn't a terrific platform. Out of the corner of his eye, he tries not to notice Baldy thumbing through his lists for Eddie's name. Lots of sheets of paper. Lots of limbs to twist, digits to break and bodies to hurl. The pavements are going to get plenty messy tonight.

  'You're not Harrison Dopple?' Red's comparing Eddie with the photograph on the ID. It's probably a very old picture. The only photo identification in Eddie's wallet is his sexual activity clearance card. It expired about a decade ago.

  Eddie tries as hard as he can not to look anything like anything any Harrison Dopple might possibly look like. Hard to pull off, given he's never even heard of the guy. Still, he tries. He straightens his stance, in case Dopple is short, and tilts his head to one side, trying to offer an un-Dopplelike profile. 'Not me.'

  Red hands him back his wallet. 'What can I say? You're not our next appointment. This is uncustomarily unprofessional.'

  'Don't mention it.'

  'I'd hate you to think we go around throwing people out of windows willy-nilly.'

  Willy-nilly? Eddie snorts playfully, trying to suggest the very thought is preposterous.

  Baldy is standing impatiently in the corridor now. Keen to make up for lost time. Keen to keep the next 'appointment'. Red looks over, nods, and crosses towards him. Eddie realizes that, for some reason, he's waiting until the men have gone to breathe properly.

  'Like I said: it's a busy night.' Red pauses in Eddie's shattered doorway. 'And if I were you, pilgrim, I'd renew that sex clearance card.'

  Eddie smiles and nods. 'I'll do that.'

  Red winks. 'You never know when you might get lucky.'

  2

  It's a strange night in a strange town. A town with just one night to live.

  In the record books, it's Afortunado City. To the people who use it, it's simply Lucky Town.

  Its one, long street is a chaos of humanity. Thousands of people who will have no need of money tomorrow, eager to spend what they've got, and the rest of the population just as eager to relieve them of it. There are just a few short hours for the dealers to deal, the grifters to grift and the hookers to hook. Prices are inflating by the second.

  Stepping out of the hotel on the very perimeter of town, Charles Perry Gordon experiences a bolt of heat in his stomach. The closest he's ever come to a sense of completeness. Fulfilment. He imagined this town. It sprang out of his mind's eye. He conjured it up, reclining in his big leather chair, at his desk in his office in Rio.

  And here it is.

  He had nothing to do with the architecture, or the technical nuts and bolts side of constructing Afortunado. He merely predicted it. It was a place that, to Gordon's mind, simply had to exist. The Project is the biggest operation ever undertaken by the human race, with a budget to match. It employs tens of thousands of people and pays them extravagantly well. Naturally, they need somewhere to dispose of their income and blow off steam. And Afortunado was born to give them somewhere to do just that. A pleasure city, carved out of the unforgiving desert of snow. An 'O-ice-is' it's been called. And though Gordon's seen it many times in his head, this is his first brush with the wonderful reality of it.

  Standing at the top of the steps, he looks right into the human tumult thronging the main street like a vast, slow-motion particle explosion. He listens to the complex yet primitive music of human voices clamouring for attention.

  To his left, he squints at the shimmering heat haze of the hotwall, the thermal barrier that separates the town from the lethal wilderness of the Antarctic peaks that surround it. Across the street, a group of youths in Bermuda shorts, fledgling goatees and brightly coloured shirts are tossing empty beer cans through the barrier, just to watch them flare and vanish. Curious to see them, in their casual summery gang uniforms, just metres away from a hostile desert of snow. Without the hotwall, their life expectancy would be measured in minutes.

  Sometime tomorrow, when the last of the temporary town's inhabitants have straggled on to the last of the transports, the wall will be powered down. Within a week, Afortunado City will be buried under tons of compacted ice and snow, reclaimed by the wasteland from which it was carved. Gordon predicted that, too.

  'Hey, pilgrim! Need a lift?'

  Gordon looks down the steps, where an ancient oriental man is looking up at him hopefully. There is a lighted sign on his headband, flashing the promise: Taxi. 'A lift?'

  There are no passenger vehicles in Afortunado. No need, Gordon predicted. The entire strip is less than a kilometre long. No journey longer than fifteen minutes on foot.

  The taximan turns around and hikes a thumb ov
er his shoulder. He's offering Gordon a piggyback. The old guy is eighty if he's a day. His tattooed limbs look like flimsy bulrushes loosely wrapped in a pirate's treasure map. A good gust of wind would snap him at the knees. Gordon shakes his head. 'I'll walk, thanks.'

  Without dropping his smile, the taximan makes a strange but clearly sexually insulting gesture, barks a bizarre exclamation, clearly an expletive, and jogs off towards the next hotel, disappearing into the blast of people.

  Gordon sighs. People disgust Gordon, on the whole. Especially people who are inferior to him. Which is, in fact, most people. He strolls down the steps after the taximan.

  Technically, he should go straight to the Project, but he can't resist at least one short inspection of the town that sprang from his mind. Who would blame him? Besides, he still has some money left over from the trip, for emergencies that never happened. Might as well spend it. Tomorrow, it will be so much waste paper for him.

  He's pictured this scene a thousand times, but in his imagination he didn't hear the sounds: the cacophony of uncomplementary music duelling painfully out of neighbouring bars, restaurants and casinos -- the techno throb invading the Dixieland, which in turn is polluted by the string quartet, which yields to the rock anthem; the indistinguishable jabber of hawkers, beggars and pleasure seekers, melding into a pulsating discord of voices. And he never imagined the smells: the hot rasp of frying oils, animal fats, spices and aromatics from all the world's cultures streaming out of the gutter cooks' food wagons; the colognes and perfumes assaulting the nostrils, but failing to mask the all too human fragrances of sweat, vomit and excrement. Disgusting, yet strangely thrilling.

  Gordon strolls on. A woman leans out of a darkened doorway and offers him a hand job. He looks down at her proffered palm which sports a genetically grafted vagina. He smiles and thanks her, politely turning her down.

  Even in the midst of all the melee, Gordon feels perfectly safe. There are no police in Afortunado. The rule of law is preserved by an extremely efficient consortium of organized-crime groups. Gordon had foreseen this would be the best system, and the franchise had been put out to tender to the top contenders. An alliance of Las Vegas mafiosi, Russian mafyia, and Hong Kong triads had secured the job, portions of which were sub-contracted to smaller groups. It all works terribly well. Violent crime is nonexistent, except for the odd over-enthusiastic debt collection incident. The streets are safe.